AV Receiver repair – Yamaha RX-V450

This AV receiver repair, a Yamaha RX-V450, was completed on a fast turnaround for a local radio producer who needed it in time for a show. It’s got 6x85W channels and more inputs and outputs than you can shake a stick at.

Although I’m well versed in solid state electronics, this is the first AV receiver I’ve worked on, because most of my work is on musical instrument amplifiers.

The fault was with the power supply and is a known design flaw with the otherwise reliable unit. Over time, power surges can damage a 600V capacitor that resides in the soft start circuit. This might sound surprising when UK mains is 230V, but audio equipment should be designed to cope with 1kV or 4.5x the rated mains voltage to withstand surges. I replaced the device with a 760V capacitor, which was the biggest part that would fit in the available space. I added epoxy glue to prevent the larger part becoming a vibration risk.

The amp was dropped off on the tuesday and the repair completed by the thursday. Just one hours work, with a short break for 24h turnaround on the new part.
The repair was completed within the first hour and returned quickly to the customer, who then brought me two other AV receiver repairs! He’d not been having much luck with them!

If you have an AV receiver repair, please let me know and I’ll see if I can help.

Rowan repaired a fault on my Henriksen Bud. He had not seen this make of amp previously and obtained necessary info from the American company. He turned the job around in a couple of hours and kept me informed via a video. Great service and fair price. Highly recommended.

I recently emailed Rowan in the UK as I live in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada and do not have any repairman near . He gave me some advice on repairing my Mesa Boogie Tremoverb. I thank you very much Rowan wish you were here in Canada

Huge thanks to Rowan for some simple safety advice regarding mains leads for my Carlsbro combo amps. Hopefully I won't need his expert services now but I certainly know where to go should that ever be the case.

I sent my MXR Carbon Copy to Rowan thinking it needed the ESD fix which Rowan did, but to no avail - it turns out that the BBD chips and the compounder chip had failed so Rowan sourced the parts and returned my CC to working order and it sounds incredible again - I'd recommend him for any sort of repair work, he'll bend over backwards to get the job done. Thanks again Rowan! B|

Rowan has worked on my Cornford mK50 ii and Marshall DSL 50 heads and repaired and changed speaker on my Fender Deluxe Reverb 2 from the 80's (Rivera era).I totally trust him with my gear and highly recommend him to anyone. He is also upfront about potential costs of repairs and a nice guy to deal with.